Indie Winterdie KräheRudi Hurzlmeier (German, b. 1952)Registered Userregular
so I'm trying to come up with systems for the HORUS DRACUL and I find it is much, much easier for me to come up with system names first and work out what they do afterwards.
for instance: the Reconnaissance, Escort and Navigation Field Droid, a.k.a. the R.E.N.Field
I think your beast generator is nicely laid out with a helpful opening. I know you’re after critic but it’s good, so not much I can add. Keep it up! It’ll be useful for any system, and I can see LANCER folks using it for wildlife on whatever planet the players end up on.
Edit: I think it’s at its strongest now you’ve committed to making it an idea aid rather than connecting it to a system. Anyone can use it, and they can use it across games and basically forever.
Thanks!
The LANCER and ICON folks were both pretty excited by it - One of them actually gave me the excellent bit of feedback to switch out "Undead" on the Asthetics list for "Unnatural", so that it can naturally generate your Mecha-Godzillas, Star Spawn or similar, which i loved as an idea and promptly stole.
Anyway! I just finished updating the first chunk of things, so if people can give me feedback on that (Everything before the weapons and utiltiy tables), i would love that.
Especially on the new movement table:
1d10 for # of limbs
None.
Two
Four
Four
Four
Four
Six
Eight
Ten
Roll a d100 for how many pairs of legs the creature has.
If your # of limbs would invalidate a roll on the Locomotion table (Knucklewalking on a no-limbed creature for example), simply roll that d20 again - or discard it. The choice is yours!
2d20 Locomotion - Primary and Secondary forms.
Swimming (Through water, or through loose terrestrial mediums like snow, sand or mud)
Floating (aerial through gas sacks, inflatable balloons, or ontop of a liquid surface)
Gilding (Through water, through the air ala a flying squirrel)
Active Flying (Bats, Flies, Bees, Hummingbirds, similar - Via wings, organic jets or similar)
Soaring (Albatrosses, Eagles or similar long-haul fliers)
Crawling/Scuttling (Many insects, lizards or similar)
Dragging (using forelimbs or head to pull itself around, body low to the ground - Turtles or similar on land)
Walking/Lumbering (Slow, stately movement ala horses or many herbivores or reptiles)
Plant-like (Could be living, animate plant matter, could be symbiotic with plants)
Fungoid (Slime mold, mushroom, fungus - could be symbotic, it’s own thing etc)
Slime/ooze like
Unnatural (Beast is Undead, Artificial, Made of star-stuff, Raw elemental expression or otherwise unconstrained by simple physical reality)
Here's some quick example Grand Beasts I whipped up using the new tables
A Two limbed, Amphibian-Beetle that moves by rolling and climbing
A Four-limbed Slime-Fungus that moves by gliding and sliding
A Four limbed Amphibian-Bear that moves by Gliding and alternating bipedalism (Moving like a human)
A Four limbed feline-mollusk that moves by swimming and sliding
An Eight-limbed Artificial Beetle that moves by dragging and gliding.
(I might need to tweak the limb distribution more looking at these results)
Grids are for tactical room clearing and nothing else.
Combat in an open field medieval style? Use Sword and Scoundrel and Mythras loose and vague rulings because grand movement doesn't matter with swords.
Gun combat? Gimme that theater of the mind or big, vague zone movement so I don't have mechs that can only fire 200m.
Most games where combat isn't a huge focus? I swear to god if you make me get a grid out for some nothing burger fight I'll bite you.
An open field swiftly stops being open after the Druid casts entangle and the Wizard casts grease. You could probably theater of the mind that except next round the Druid stone calls an area partially overlapping the entangle and the Wizard casts create pit in yet another area. How do you adjudicate how much damage the charging quickling takes from stone spikes if you don't know it's exact location? (No, our party for Kingmaker in Pathfinder didn't have any melee classes why do you ask?)
Yes this is a very D&D brained way to think about combat in a game.
Like, to be very blunt, I used Sword and Scoundrel and Mythras because they're both more realistic/grounded in their combat and also eschew grids for stylish "sword fights go everywhere" mechanics.
Mythras has grid mechanics in the advanced rules and it's ltierally more involved than anything D&D has due to trying to capture semi real feeling movement constraints and actions within them.
The idea that a 5ft grid is more real or accurate than another system is purely due to the weird grid magic and ranges your system presents.
All that said, I'm very interested in this Sword and Scoundrel and Mythras you speak of.
Sword and Scoundrel is actually free to download and read through. It's general combat mechanics are heavily focused on 1v1's and other small skirmishes. Combat essentially doesn't start until people are within the 10ft range of two swords being able to clash and so on (Though there are some mechanics for how you get there and ranged weapons obviously).
Then each participant (We'll keep it 1v1 for simplicity and because dear god do not get outnumbered) draws up their combat pool based on their attributes and skills of d6.
Rounds go:
Draw Pools
Beat 1
Beat 2
Reset
On a beat whoever has initiative (Determined by a little pre duel mini game or just GM fiat for sucker punches/ambushes or just who won the last beat) declares an offensive maneuver and how many dice from their pool they will commit. The defender then replies with a defensive maneuver and how many dice they'll commit.
Roll the pools, most successes wins. Typically offensive options will do some sort of damage to where you aimed the strike and wounds will knock dice out of the wounded character's combat pool (Y'know, if they don't already leave the wounded character trying to back away and screaming for parley instead of a duel). Defensive options are typically going to either merely block attacks and grant initiative or, for more advanced ones (that cost combat pool dice) knock your opponents weapon away so it can't be used next beat or other ways to stagger their tempo.
Movement in a duel is presumed to happen in the back and forth but be unimportant for the most part. This is changed up in two cases:
1) If you're fighting multiple people you can take a gambit to try move yourself such that the crowd can't all target you. Essentially your foot work puts their allies between their blade and you. In this manner a skilled fighter can stylishly hold off three of the count's incompetent but fancily dressed guards.
2) Anyone can make part of their beat a gambit. Essentially paying some combat pool dice to try do something narrative for an effect. You could try push someone into the stream so their footing becomes unsteady, cut a rope to drop a sand bag on someone while duelling on stage or merely sling unkind words. This lets you incorporate non combat skills and also forces a second opposed roll (your opponent gets to section off dice too) about how it goes.
In general even if you're just using the basic rules (and not doing binding weapons, combos or other fancy things the system does because it's so aroused by sexy sword fights) it's all about anteing up for cuts and thrusts or countering them. Your tactics are not on a grid but instead in how many dice you commit to each action. You can over commit defensively to gain the initiative but then have no tempo with which to cut your opponent. You can throw it all in, lose to an unlucky dice roll and then be cut down. There's a romance in blades clashing with unarmoured flesh so easy to harm. You measure your opponent, they measure you as you go back and forth till a blade strikes true.
Ignoring Mythras for the moment, but I take it Sword and Scoundrel is inspired by The Riddle of Steel?
Fuck, I still haven't put pen to paper wrt prepping for the continuation of the last game I ran. I'd
better do that so if someone else doesn't step up to run Friday's game then I won't be caught flat footed again. I have plenty of free time to plan at work today so we'll see how that goes.
Fuck, I still haven't put pen to paper wrt prepping for the continuation of the last game I ran. I'd
better do that so if someone else doesn't step up to run Friday's game then I won't be caught flat footed again. I have plenty of free time to plan at work today so we'll see how that goes.
What happened last game? Can you put in a town collapsing into the earth because a group of dwarfs having started mining beneath it? Can you put blind albino bat goblins in it? You can go wrong with blind albino bat goblins.
Welp, our Shadow of the DemonLord campaign is over, so I'll be running CY_BORG next week.
I am excite.
Sweet! Do you know what adventure you'll be running? Lucky Flight Takedown? Just rolling randomly and using the location pad?
Not yet! I might just roll randomly but I have several zines I need to read through and decide. I know the group is a little tired of playing bad adventurers who are bad and weak and can't help anyone. Playing one OSR game after another into Mork Borg and then into Shadow of the DemonLord will do that to you. So while the game really wants to make everything awful, I'm going to try and help them be heroic.
An option I'm heavily considering, regarding headline 0x0:
I may just roll randomly and just let shit happen, but when they find out everything's a simulation, a mysterious entity within GO, who has been popping up here and there and I'll try to make some tie-ins with their random adventures, is aware of the simulation and has a way to keep the party from resetting, but the clock is ticking and they have to assault a place to carry out this plan.
Fuck, I still haven't put pen to paper wrt prepping for the continuation of the last game I ran. I'd
better do that so if someone else doesn't step up to run Friday's game then I won't be caught flat footed again. I have plenty of free time to plan at work today so we'll see how that goes.
What happened last game? Can you put in a town collapsing into the earth because a group of dwarfs having started mining beneath it? Can you put blind albino bat goblins in it? You can go wrong with blind albino bat goblins.
Party got sent to help some thri-kreen that were excavating some tunnels and thought they had been attacked by ghosts. Turns out it was a nest of flying catlike beasts that can blink between the ethereal and material planes (statwise they're really similar to phase spiders) that had attacked them. The party couldn't handle the amount of them they found (I panicked and said they saw 10 of them, when 1 had nearly killed a player by itself), but they did manage to survive and drive them off so the party could retreat and ask for help (from the very people they're supposed to be helping lol).
I think I'd posted some vague thoughts about it here not long after the session, so I'll need to go look. I do remember thinking maybe the miners had broken into a huge geode and that opened a portal to the ethereal plane inside it, attracting the attention of the creatures (whose nest is in the ethereal plane, inside the geode). When the players get there they'd notice magic energy coruscating amongst the geode's crystals, and they could use it somehow to help fight them off and close the portal. Whatever the players attempt with the energy will work, I'll let them figure out the details lol.
However, I need to figure out a few things: how the thri-kreen will assist them, why the thri-kreen are there digging tunnels in the first place (not super important but it might come up in conversation and I like having an answer), and some encounters for the players that aren't just them fighting those beasts. The tunnels they've been in so far are entirely kreen-made, but I was thinking of having them intersect with some natural caverns to diversify the environments and then I could use cracks and natural tunnels and stuff to link more areas together.
Also, my setting has no dwarves/humans/elves/gnomes/halflings. Blind albino bat goblins sound cool tho, I might work a skittish group of them into a cavern somewhere.
Not yet! I might just roll randomly but I have several zines I need to read through and decide. I know the group is a little tired of playing bad adventurers who are bad and weak and can't help anyone. Playing one OSR game after another into Mork Borg and then into Shadow of the DemonLord will do that to you. So while the game really wants to make everything awful, I'm going to try and help them be heroic.
An option I'm heavily considering, regarding headline 0x0:
I may just roll randomly and just let shit happen, but when they find out everything's a simulation, a mysterious entity within GO, who has been popping up here and there and I'll try to make some tie-ins with their random adventures, is aware of the simulation and has a way to keep the party from resetting, but the clock is ticking and they have to assault a place to carry out this plan.
I like that idea.
You could even start with six headlines already active, and then the job the PCs are on leads them to a "boot drive" server temporarily, where they are protected when 0x0 happens.
When they get back all of the headlines are erased, their dead friends are back, and nobody knows anything...except the G0 entity, who now needs the PCs' help.
Not yet! I might just roll randomly but I have several zines I need to read through and decide. I know the group is a little tired of playing bad adventurers who are bad and weak and can't help anyone. Playing one OSR game after another into Mork Borg and then into Shadow of the DemonLord will do that to you. So while the game really wants to make everything awful, I'm going to try and help them be heroic.
An option I'm heavily considering, regarding headline 0x0:
I may just roll randomly and just let shit happen, but when they find out everything's a simulation, a mysterious entity within GO, who has been popping up here and there and I'll try to make some tie-ins with their random adventures, is aware of the simulation and has a way to keep the party from resetting, but the clock is ticking and they have to assault a place to carry out this plan.
I like that idea.
You could even start with six headlines already active, and then the job the PCs are on leads them to a "boot drive" server temporarily, where they are protected when 0x0 happens.
When they get back all of the headlines are erased, their dead friends are back, and nobody knows anything...except the G0 entity, who now needs the PCs' help.
Not yet! I might just roll randomly but I have several zines I need to read through and decide. I know the group is a little tired of playing bad adventurers who are bad and weak and can't help anyone. Playing one OSR game after another into Mork Borg and then into Shadow of the DemonLord will do that to you. So while the game really wants to make everything awful, I'm going to try and help them be heroic.
An option I'm heavily considering, regarding headline 0x0:
I may just roll randomly and just let shit happen, but when they find out everything's a simulation, a mysterious entity within GO, who has been popping up here and there and I'll try to make some tie-ins with their random adventures, is aware of the simulation and has a way to keep the party from resetting, but the clock is ticking and they have to assault a place to carry out this plan.
I like that idea.
You could even start with six headlines already active, and then the job the PCs are on leads them to a "boot drive" server temporarily, where they are protected when 0x0 happens.
When they get back all of the headlines are erased, their dead friends are back, and nobody knows anything...except the G0 entity, who now needs the PCs' help.
Well fuck I like yours better and I'm taking it!
It was your idea; I just moved up the timeline so the players get to feel important sooner.
Mörk Borg-style games often leave individual characters feeling wasted, but give them an important mission and they'll climb into the jaws of Nechrubel just to pull it off.
Got a bug in my brains to try and make a Roadside Picnic inspired Borg hack. Mörk Zone?
Hmm.
I think CY_Borg has a good basis for that; one of the plot points is that there's a zone of the city called G0 that's walled off because of Weird Shit and there's a subculture of pvnks that sneak in to loot or whatever.
+2
PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
Got a bug in my brains to try and make a Roadside Picnic inspired Borg hack. Mörk Zone?
Hmm.
I think CY_Borg has a good basis for that; one of the plot points is that there's a zone of the city called G0 that's walled off because of Weird Shit and there's a subculture of pvnks that sneak in to loot or whatever.
this is basically the plot of the necromunda fps that came out a year or so ago
+1
UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
Got a bug in my brains to try and make a Roadside Picnic inspired Borg hack. Mörk Zone?
Hmm.
I think CY_Borg has a good basis for that; one of the plot points is that there's a zone of the city called G0 that's walled off because of Weird Shit and there's a subculture of pvnks that sneak in to loot or whatever.
this is basically the plot of the necromunda fps that came out a year or so ago
I wish I could play Hired Gun more, but I have the stupid crash issue when I try upgrading my shit. Annoying, because otherwise the game has got me good.
I didn’t see Eva’s post at the time I was just making a very obvious reference so you know I know the things you know. I’m here to pick lice and assimilate.
So I want some feedback on something. I asked the players about this and they agreed to it but sometimes I'm not sure if they're just agreeing to whatever or if they're really thinking about it or what.
Context: Our group is very, very bad at paying attention. 5 of the 6 of us have ADHD, and are constantly asking each other what the fuck is going on. At any moment, 2-3 people have their phones out and are playing phone games. We get very distracted easily and end up going on rabbit trails all over the place with conversation, and can sometimes lose an entire half hour to fucking chit-chat.
So now that I'm getting in the driver's seat, I threw up this idea for a houserule: If it's your turn to do things, whether it's in combat or out of combat, and you ask me what's going on or what the situation is, the difficulty you need to hit for the next action you take goes up a step. However, conversely, if I ever get too into whatever reference I'm reading or chit-chatting or whatever that I don't know what the fuck is going on and have to ask, the next player's difficulty goes down a step.
Exceptions would be made for bathroom and smoke breaks, phone calls from spouses asking if the game is over yet one hour into the game (no really this happens constantly and to multiple people, I don't fucking understand), emergencies, etc. But if you're showing off your new Steam Deck and you don't know what's going on when it's your turn, Imma hit ya.
Is such a houserule mean, or does it come off as mean-spirited? My intention is to keep everyone invested in what's going on, and I'm going to try to pick up the pace a whole bunch compared to our other GM to help that along, but I also want people to have an incentive to pay attention, both because they avoid penalties for doing so, but because it wouldn't be hard to catch me fucking up and getting a bonus if they're paying attention.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I feel like the incentive to pay attention should be the game as its own reward. Like, you're playing this for fun, it's not like a math class full of inattentive middle schoolers. That sort of punitive measure as a solution feels off to be in a couple of directions.
That said, I would encourage you to plan your games with frequent breaks and make sure you have like, bumper time at the beginning to let people talk to each other or show off their new steam deck or whatever. Especially when I've been playing with a group that isn't regularly non-game socializing with one another I know that's been a big thing.
I mean keep in mind the thing you’re trying to curtail there is potentially the result of a disability.
Like it’s absolutely something we have to try to overcome, but also there’s a lot of other ways to manage the issue. Like you’re not going to ever incentivize paying attention enough. Like we gotta take drugs just to be passable at paying attention
Having a bunch of folks on my table with varying levels of concentration issues, and life distractions, I’ve just gotten used to starting everyone’s turn with a light recap of their immediate situation.
That's pretty brutal, I think. I'm fortunate enough that with my particular flavor of ADHD, I hyperfocus on games and the details so I don't have a problem keeping people updated on salient points for a game.
I also tend to be of the mind that while game night is there for game and should be a focus, we're also people who don't always have time to just sit down and socialize with people, so a little cross-talk is fine. If you feel like it's eating in the group's game time, talk with them and see if they agree. Then if they all agree, propose this and see if they dig it or if they have other solutions that they think might help.
It'll feel less like you're dictating and you might be helping break the ice on an important subject and get a better all around solution out of it. You're all there together, so let everyone build a stake in making it better.
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Hail Hydra
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I'd also say it might be worthwhile to look at the game itself in order to see if it's exacerbating things. What structural elements of the game you're playing afford your players these chances to get distracted? Are there ways you could fix that?
Instances and abilities where you can assist the other characters or have things that are reaction triggered might make people pay closer attention to what's happening around them.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited January 17
idk if it's mean, but for me at least it wouldn't be effective. Failing a key roll because my attention drifted away would just make me frustrated and detach from the game more, while the opposite would make me feel like my in-game actions mattered less than whether you were having a bad night.
but I'm also generally of the opinion that if the game can't hold the attention of your entire play group, including you, that might be a bad choice of game for that group.
(and that includes a built-in feeling that it's fine to recap things. A lot of my games bounce between scenes so even highly-focused players might need a context refresh)
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
There aren’t in-game solutions for out-of-game problems. If attention span is a problem (and especially if this is potentially an accessibility issue) then introducing an element to the game itself to curtail it is unlikely to succeed, and will probably instead create or exacerbate problems. Talk it through with your players, lay out what you’re noticing and work together with everyone to find something that works.
To add some more context: I have ADHD, emphasis on the A and the D. It is practically impossible for me to work on or do anything that I'm not extremely invested in at the moment. I also don't take medication for it because, unfortunately, all of the stims give me panic attacks and all of the non-stims turn me into an angry fuckwad (as if that wasn't obvious already!).
So like, I get it. I'm not trying to punish anyone for having a disability, I'm trying to encourage a more serious approach to playing the game. In most of our sessions, we have about a solid hour of everyone talking about things that are not-game, then the game starts, GM asks us what we want to do, we say what we want to do, and then, like, it's like we got frozen in time and nobody's actually doing anything and I keep nudging the GM like, hey come on we said what we wanted to do are we doing that yet? Like we only have 2 hours to play in a 3 hour game session and I feel like I'm trapped in a gelatinous cube.
An example to try to explain better: In one of our sessions, I was presented with a door. I said I wanted to open the door. He asked me if I wanted to open the door. What then proceeded was a hundred rabbit trails and then he came back to me, a literal real-world 1 hour later, to ask me if I was still opening that door. I can't stand shit like this, it makes me want to walk into traffic, or just stare blankly in response, or scream. I have no idea how I managed to just say yes and then take my turn. It was a real life journey, I tell ya.
Like I understand giving some bumper time to socialize (but like 15 mins, max), and I understand ADHD, but we often will have maybe 1 fight in a 3 hour session of SotDL and man that combat system is not complicated, just take your fucking turn. Move things along. Get shit going.
My intention is to solve the vast majority of it by trying to push us through those goddamn doors and get into shit and to keep shit exciting and to remove any and all pauses that I can. If I need to roll on tables, have the players do it for me, have them come up with NPC names, that sort of thing.
Thanks to your feedback I think, even though they all agreed to it and said it was a good idea, it probably isn't and it's also kinda gross to be doing this penalty mechanic, so I'm going to get rid of it. I think maybe I'll give them extra glitches (glitches are good things in CY_BORG, which is still confusing for my Shadowrun brain) if they help keep us on track or do quick recaps for people when I would like to keep shit moving. Probably a much better idea.
Yeah like you mention phone games - I know when I start doing phone games, it's because I need something to keep my brain ticking over. It's a form of stimming
Punishing me for stimming is just gonna make me not want to play
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
edited January 17
May I ask what game system you’re using? If it’sa rules-crunchy game, which is an assumption I’m making based on what you’ve described, then maybe your players would be more amenable to a more narrative-forward game? Something that asks more directly, “what does your character want to do” rather than asking “tell me what part of the rule book you want to use here”
Said another way: if it’s a chore to get through doors within the rules framework of the game you’re currently playing, maybe trying a game that covers more ground would help. Or something in that line of thinking.
That's pretty brutal, I think. I'm fortunate enough that with my particular flavor of ADHD, I hyperfocus on games and the details so I don't have a problem keeping people updated on salient points for a game.
I also tend to be of the mind that while game night is there for game and should be a focus, we're also people who don't always have time to just sit down and socialize with people, so a little cross-talk is fine. If you feel like it's eating in the group's game time, talk with them and see if they agree. Then if they all agree, propose this and see if they dig it or if they have other solutions that they think might help.
It'll feel less like you're dictating and you might be helping break the ice on an important subject and get a better all around solution out of it. You're all there together, so let everyone build a stake in making it better.
I'm in the same boat as you, my flavor of ADHD has me hyperfocusing on the game like a laser beam so my attention isn't an issue (though I do chitchat too much sometimes when I'm DMing and I haven't prepped at all, as a form of stalling lol). But if my attention did wander, or even appeared to wander (like Penguin said about them and phone games, or like how a friend of mine would draw elaborate pictures of her character but was still paying attention, etc.), and mechanics like this got introduced I'd probably feel pretty bummed about it. Maybe I'm paying attention, but it just doesn't look like it. Maybe I'm not, but it's due to my ADHD. Maybe I'm not paying attention because something about the game is boring me. Whatever the reason, it's probably not on purpose or out of disrespect.
Not saying it isn't an issue, because for at least one person at your table it is (you), but like Tyannan said the penalties are an in-game solution for an out-of-game problem and those don't usually work.
But you have already been given good advice and I'm just saying basically the same things they all did. Mostly just talking out loud for my own benefit.
May I ask what game system you’re using? If it’sa rules-crunchy game, which is an assumption I’m making based on what you’ve described, then maybe your players would be more amenable to a more narrative-forward game? Something that asks more directly, “what does your character want to do” rather than asking “tell me what part of the rule book you want to use here”
Said another way: if it’s a chore to get through doors within the rules framework of the game you’re currently playing, maybe trying a game that covers more ground would help. Or something in that line of thinking.
Well, to be clear, we just finished the current game as of last night, which was Shadow of the Demon Lord. It's a game where you roll with one of your few ability scores and you try to hit a 12 on nearly everything you want to do. We've had this problem with other games as well, though: Mork Borg, Call of Cthulhu, ALIEN, to name a few. It's not like he needs to check the book or we need to roll dice or anything like that, either. It's an unlocked door but my hand hasn't reached out for the handle yet because a cat jumped on the game table, and someone wants to show off their Steam Deck, and someone wants to fill the candy dish, and someone wants to talk about their work day, and then oh look I'm playing phone games. My choice of action is on a lazy susan and when we come back around to me on the lazy susan then my action will take place. But the lazy susan takes an hour to get back to me. Sometimes NPC's and monsters will actually take multiple actions before we get back to me and see if that door is open yet, and I find myself regularly asking, okay so have I done this incredibly simple task that doesn't even require a check, yet? Do I have agency? And then okay yeah door's open, you look inside it, and then there's another hour before I can actually be told what I see.
Also to be clear, I wasn't running these games, I played in them. This will be my first time in the driver's seat for this group since about 5 years ago when I had to bail for a couple years because I was taking CC courses. I used to run Deadlands and 50 Fathoms and 4th Edition and 13th Age for these folks. My hope is that I can get things running a bit smoother, keep people active more, execute the actions people declare right away, etc.
I'm very much trying to avoid just airing grievances about my GM. I've talked to him about a lot of this shit, he tries, it is what it is. My intention is to take a different approach, shake things up a little, put some fucking life into things. Focus less on what he's done wrong, focus more on what I can do right.
About the only thing I can say is like, more pacing? If your audience are all cool people who stim for fun (a group I’m part of) then you probably need a more quick pacing.
It’s something I notice is that my dnd gm runs much slower, more dialogue focused sessions.
Meanwhile I run stuff that is like, blunt scenes with purpose and a cutting point. More in depth character stuff tends to happen in downtime or scenes there to give me more time.
And during the slower scenes in the former I do tend to zone out and struggle with names and other stuff. Then I’ll focus when the option to roleplay my weird spirit of death or mechanically solve something comes up.
+1
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
To add some more context: I have ADHD, emphasis on the A and the D. It is practically impossible for me to work on or do anything that I'm not extremely invested in at the moment. I also don't take medication for it because, unfortunately, all of the stims give me panic attacks and all of the non-stims turn me into an angry fuckwad (as if that wasn't obvious already!).
So like, I get it. I'm not trying to punish anyone for having a disability, I'm trying to encourage a more serious approach to playing the game. In most of our sessions, we have about a solid hour of everyone talking about things that are not-game, then the game starts, GM asks us what we want to do, we say what we want to do, and then, like, it's like we got frozen in time and nobody's actually doing anything and I keep nudging the GM like, hey come on we said what we wanted to do are we doing that yet? Like we only have 2 hours to play in a 3 hour game session and I feel like I'm trapped in a gelatinous cube.
An example to try to explain better: In one of our sessions, I was presented with a door. I said I wanted to open the door. He asked me if I wanted to open the door. What then proceeded was a hundred rabbit trails and then he came back to me, a literal real-world 1 hour later, to ask me if I was still opening that door. I can't stand shit like this, it makes me want to walk into traffic, or just stare blankly in response, or scream. I have no idea how I managed to just say yes and then take my turn. It was a real life journey, I tell ya.
Like I understand giving some bumper time to socialize (but like 15 mins, max), and I understand ADHD, but we often will have maybe 1 fight in a 3 hour session of SotDL and man that combat system is not complicated, just take your fucking turn. Move things along. Get shit going.
My intention is to solve the vast majority of it by trying to push us through those goddamn doors and get into shit and to keep shit exciting and to remove any and all pauses that I can. If I need to roll on tables, have the players do it for me, have them come up with NPC names, that sort of thing.
Thanks to your feedback I think, even though they all agreed to it and said it was a good idea, it probably isn't and it's also kinda gross to be doing this penalty mechanic, so I'm going to get rid of it. I think maybe I'll give them extra glitches (glitches are good things in CY_BORG, which is still confusing for my Shadowrun brain) if they help keep us on track or do quick recaps for people when I would like to keep shit moving. Probably a much better idea.
I mean, no wonder no one is paying attention when it takes you three conversational steps to open a door.
This doesn't sound like an ADHD problem, to me, this sounds like a pacing problem that creates an attention problem that's exacerbated by ADHD.
Yeah, that sounds like a group that needs a stern talking to on what you're trying to achieve and why. I'd be beyond checked out and incredibly stressed if that happened to me
If you just want some stress relief:
- The session does not involve locked doors. Doors are quite rare too; the Dark Lord is into open plan design and feng shui.
- Enemies have low HP and AC.
- Explosive barrels. They can be highly flammable potion shelves or big red mushrooms if you like.
- A magic compass that points to treasure or a haunted lantern that turns blue near secrets.
- Start the first session in the middle of the dungeon. Ask them what treasure they were told was in the dungeon and if they have another reason for being here. Begin playing.
Posts
for instance: the Reconnaissance, Escort and Navigation Field Droid, a.k.a. the R.E.N.Field
now, what would this bad boy do at LL1
Thanks!
The LANCER and ICON folks were both pretty excited by it - One of them actually gave me the excellent bit of feedback to switch out "Undead" on the Asthetics list for "Unnatural", so that it can naturally generate your Mecha-Godzillas, Star Spawn or similar, which i loved as an idea and promptly stole.
Anyway! I just finished updating the first chunk of things, so if people can give me feedback on that (Everything before the weapons and utiltiy tables), i would love that.
Especially on the new movement table:
If your # of limbs would invalidate a roll on the Locomotion table (Knucklewalking on a no-limbed creature for example), simply roll that d20 again - or discard it. The choice is yours!
2d20 Locomotion - Primary and Secondary forms.
2d20 and combine for aesthetic
Here's some quick example Grand Beasts I whipped up using the new tables
A Two limbed, Amphibian-Beetle that moves by rolling and climbing
A Four-limbed Slime-Fungus that moves by gliding and sliding
A Four limbed Amphibian-Bear that moves by Gliding and alternating bipedalism (Moving like a human)
A Four limbed feline-mollusk that moves by swimming and sliding
An Eight-limbed Artificial Beetle that moves by dragging and gliding.
(I might need to tweak the limb distribution more looking at these results)
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Ignoring Mythras for the moment, but I take it Sword and Scoundrel is inspired by The Riddle of Steel?
Mythras is a spin off of Runequest.
I am excite.
better do that so if someone else doesn't step up to run Friday's game then I won't be caught flat footed again. I have plenty of free time to plan at work today so we'll see how that goes.
Sweet! Do you know what adventure you'll be running? Lucky Flight Takedown? Just rolling randomly and using the location pad?
What happened last game? Can you put in a town collapsing into the earth because a group of dwarfs having started mining beneath it? Can you put blind albino bat goblins in it? You can go wrong with blind albino bat goblins.
Not yet! I might just roll randomly but I have several zines I need to read through and decide. I know the group is a little tired of playing bad adventurers who are bad and weak and can't help anyone. Playing one OSR game after another into Mork Borg and then into Shadow of the DemonLord will do that to you. So while the game really wants to make everything awful, I'm going to try and help them be heroic.
An option I'm heavily considering, regarding headline 0x0:
Party got sent to help some thri-kreen that were excavating some tunnels and thought they had been attacked by ghosts. Turns out it was a nest of flying catlike beasts that can blink between the ethereal and material planes (statwise they're really similar to phase spiders) that had attacked them. The party couldn't handle the amount of them they found (I panicked and said they saw 10 of them, when 1 had nearly killed a player by itself), but they did manage to survive and drive them off so the party could retreat and ask for help (from the very people they're supposed to be helping lol).
I think I'd posted some vague thoughts about it here not long after the session, so I'll need to go look. I do remember thinking maybe the miners had broken into a huge geode and that opened a portal to the ethereal plane inside it, attracting the attention of the creatures (whose nest is in the ethereal plane, inside the geode). When the players get there they'd notice magic energy coruscating amongst the geode's crystals, and they could use it somehow to help fight them off and close the portal. Whatever the players attempt with the energy will work, I'll let them figure out the details lol.
However, I need to figure out a few things: how the thri-kreen will assist them, why the thri-kreen are there digging tunnels in the first place (not super important but it might come up in conversation and I like having an answer), and some encounters for the players that aren't just them fighting those beasts. The tunnels they've been in so far are entirely kreen-made, but I was thinking of having them intersect with some natural caverns to diversify the environments and then I could use cracks and natural tunnels and stuff to link more areas together.
Also, my setting has no dwarves/humans/elves/gnomes/halflings. Blind albino bat goblins sound cool tho, I might work a skittish group of them into a cavern somewhere.
I like that idea.
When they get back all of the headlines are erased, their dead friends are back, and nobody knows anything...except the G0 entity, who now needs the PCs' help.
Well fuck I like yours better and I'm taking it!
Mörk Borg-style games often leave individual characters feeling wasted, but give them an important mission and they'll climb into the jaws of Nechrubel just to pull it off.
Hmm.
I think CY_Borg has a good basis for that; one of the plot points is that there's a zone of the city called G0 that's walled off because of Weird Shit and there's a subculture of pvnks that sneak in to loot or whatever.
this is basically the plot of the necromunda fps that came out a year or so ago
I wish I could play Hired Gun more, but I have the stupid crash issue when I try upgrading my shit. Annoying, because otherwise the game has got me good.
Context: Our group is very, very bad at paying attention. 5 of the 6 of us have ADHD, and are constantly asking each other what the fuck is going on. At any moment, 2-3 people have their phones out and are playing phone games. We get very distracted easily and end up going on rabbit trails all over the place with conversation, and can sometimes lose an entire half hour to fucking chit-chat.
So now that I'm getting in the driver's seat, I threw up this idea for a houserule: If it's your turn to do things, whether it's in combat or out of combat, and you ask me what's going on or what the situation is, the difficulty you need to hit for the next action you take goes up a step. However, conversely, if I ever get too into whatever reference I'm reading or chit-chatting or whatever that I don't know what the fuck is going on and have to ask, the next player's difficulty goes down a step.
Exceptions would be made for bathroom and smoke breaks, phone calls from spouses asking if the game is over yet one hour into the game (no really this happens constantly and to multiple people, I don't fucking understand), emergencies, etc. But if you're showing off your new Steam Deck and you don't know what's going on when it's your turn, Imma hit ya.
Is such a houserule mean, or does it come off as mean-spirited? My intention is to keep everyone invested in what's going on, and I'm going to try to pick up the pace a whole bunch compared to our other GM to help that along, but I also want people to have an incentive to pay attention, both because they avoid penalties for doing so, but because it wouldn't be hard to catch me fucking up and getting a bonus if they're paying attention.
That said, I would encourage you to plan your games with frequent breaks and make sure you have like, bumper time at the beginning to let people talk to each other or show off their new steam deck or whatever. Especially when I've been playing with a group that isn't regularly non-game socializing with one another I know that's been a big thing.
Like it’s absolutely something we have to try to overcome, but also there’s a lot of other ways to manage the issue. Like you’re not going to ever incentivize paying attention enough. Like we gotta take drugs just to be passable at paying attention
Having a bunch of folks on my table with varying levels of concentration issues, and life distractions, I’ve just gotten used to starting everyone’s turn with a light recap of their immediate situation.
I also tend to be of the mind that while game night is there for game and should be a focus, we're also people who don't always have time to just sit down and socialize with people, so a little cross-talk is fine. If you feel like it's eating in the group's game time, talk with them and see if they agree. Then if they all agree, propose this and see if they dig it or if they have other solutions that they think might help.
It'll feel less like you're dictating and you might be helping break the ice on an important subject and get a better all around solution out of it. You're all there together, so let everyone build a stake in making it better.
Instances and abilities where you can assist the other characters or have things that are reaction triggered might make people pay closer attention to what's happening around them.
but I'm also generally of the opinion that if the game can't hold the attention of your entire play group, including you, that might be a bad choice of game for that group.
(and that includes a built-in feeling that it's fine to recap things. A lot of my games bounce between scenes so even highly-focused players might need a context refresh)
To add some more context: I have ADHD, emphasis on the A and the D. It is practically impossible for me to work on or do anything that I'm not extremely invested in at the moment. I also don't take medication for it because, unfortunately, all of the stims give me panic attacks and all of the non-stims turn me into an angry fuckwad (as if that wasn't obvious already!).
So like, I get it. I'm not trying to punish anyone for having a disability, I'm trying to encourage a more serious approach to playing the game. In most of our sessions, we have about a solid hour of everyone talking about things that are not-game, then the game starts, GM asks us what we want to do, we say what we want to do, and then, like, it's like we got frozen in time and nobody's actually doing anything and I keep nudging the GM like, hey come on we said what we wanted to do are we doing that yet? Like we only have 2 hours to play in a 3 hour game session and I feel like I'm trapped in a gelatinous cube.
An example to try to explain better: In one of our sessions, I was presented with a door. I said I wanted to open the door. He asked me if I wanted to open the door. What then proceeded was a hundred rabbit trails and then he came back to me, a literal real-world 1 hour later, to ask me if I was still opening that door. I can't stand shit like this, it makes me want to walk into traffic, or just stare blankly in response, or scream. I have no idea how I managed to just say yes and then take my turn. It was a real life journey, I tell ya.
Like I understand giving some bumper time to socialize (but like 15 mins, max), and I understand ADHD, but we often will have maybe 1 fight in a 3 hour session of SotDL and man that combat system is not complicated, just take your fucking turn. Move things along. Get shit going.
My intention is to solve the vast majority of it by trying to push us through those goddamn doors and get into shit and to keep shit exciting and to remove any and all pauses that I can. If I need to roll on tables, have the players do it for me, have them come up with NPC names, that sort of thing.
Thanks to your feedback I think, even though they all agreed to it and said it was a good idea, it probably isn't and it's also kinda gross to be doing this penalty mechanic, so I'm going to get rid of it. I think maybe I'll give them extra glitches (glitches are good things in CY_BORG, which is still confusing for my Shadowrun brain) if they help keep us on track or do quick recaps for people when I would like to keep shit moving. Probably a much better idea.
Punishing me for stimming is just gonna make me not want to play
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Said another way: if it’s a chore to get through doors within the rules framework of the game you’re currently playing, maybe trying a game that covers more ground would help. Or something in that line of thinking.
I'm in the same boat as you, my flavor of ADHD has me hyperfocusing on the game like a laser beam so my attention isn't an issue (though I do chitchat too much sometimes when I'm DMing and I haven't prepped at all, as a form of stalling lol). But if my attention did wander, or even appeared to wander (like Penguin said about them and phone games, or like how a friend of mine would draw elaborate pictures of her character but was still paying attention, etc.), and mechanics like this got introduced I'd probably feel pretty bummed about it. Maybe I'm paying attention, but it just doesn't look like it. Maybe I'm not, but it's due to my ADHD. Maybe I'm not paying attention because something about the game is boring me. Whatever the reason, it's probably not on purpose or out of disrespect.
Not saying it isn't an issue, because for at least one person at your table it is (you), but like Tyannan said the penalties are an in-game solution for an out-of-game problem and those don't usually work.
But you have already been given good advice and I'm just saying basically the same things they all did. Mostly just talking out loud for my own benefit.
Well, to be clear, we just finished the current game as of last night, which was Shadow of the Demon Lord. It's a game where you roll with one of your few ability scores and you try to hit a 12 on nearly everything you want to do. We've had this problem with other games as well, though: Mork Borg, Call of Cthulhu, ALIEN, to name a few. It's not like he needs to check the book or we need to roll dice or anything like that, either. It's an unlocked door but my hand hasn't reached out for the handle yet because a cat jumped on the game table, and someone wants to show off their Steam Deck, and someone wants to fill the candy dish, and someone wants to talk about their work day, and then oh look I'm playing phone games. My choice of action is on a lazy susan and when we come back around to me on the lazy susan then my action will take place. But the lazy susan takes an hour to get back to me. Sometimes NPC's and monsters will actually take multiple actions before we get back to me and see if that door is open yet, and I find myself regularly asking, okay so have I done this incredibly simple task that doesn't even require a check, yet? Do I have agency? And then okay yeah door's open, you look inside it, and then there's another hour before I can actually be told what I see.
Also to be clear, I wasn't running these games, I played in them. This will be my first time in the driver's seat for this group since about 5 years ago when I had to bail for a couple years because I was taking CC courses. I used to run Deadlands and 50 Fathoms and 4th Edition and 13th Age for these folks. My hope is that I can get things running a bit smoother, keep people active more, execute the actions people declare right away, etc.
I'm very much trying to avoid just airing grievances about my GM. I've talked to him about a lot of this shit, he tries, it is what it is. My intention is to take a different approach, shake things up a little, put some fucking life into things. Focus less on what he's done wrong, focus more on what I can do right.
It’s something I notice is that my dnd gm runs much slower, more dialogue focused sessions.
Meanwhile I run stuff that is like, blunt scenes with purpose and a cutting point. More in depth character stuff tends to happen in downtime or scenes there to give me more time.
And during the slower scenes in the former I do tend to zone out and struggle with names and other stuff. Then I’ll focus when the option to roleplay my weird spirit of death or mechanically solve something comes up.
I mean, no wonder no one is paying attention when it takes you three conversational steps to open a door.
This doesn't sound like an ADHD problem, to me, this sounds like a pacing problem that creates an attention problem that's exacerbated by ADHD.
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- The session does not involve locked doors. Doors are quite rare too; the Dark Lord is into open plan design and feng shui.
- Enemies have low HP and AC.
- Explosive barrels. They can be highly flammable potion shelves or big red mushrooms if you like.
- A magic compass that points to treasure or a haunted lantern that turns blue near secrets.
- Start the first session in the middle of the dungeon. Ask them what treasure they were told was in the dungeon and if they have another reason for being here. Begin playing.
Just a procedurally generated dungeon which is a fancy magitech sewer.
Designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson's or at least his copyright friendly equivalent.
Why are the PCs here? Because the sewer broke down.
Again.
So they've been hired to go in and fix it (possibly by a very small officious man welding a clipboard and a very harried tone of voice)
Good luck!
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